Monday, June 30, 2008

Prince Albert

A reader of this blog commented that several posts (like this and this) addressing technology seemed influenced by Dr. Albert Borgmann, Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montana. As Dr. Borgmann was my professor in 1999, it occurs to me that in the interest of citing my sources, a word could be said about this remarkable thinker.

Like most of the scholars in Missoula, Dr. Borgmann could have taught at the world's best institutions, but selected "The U" for social or environmental reasons (Dr. Borgmann is an exceptional skier).

He is all at once brilliant, focused, humane, exceptionally clear and (though few students ever witness it) funny, compassionate and merciful. He gives every indication of loving his pupils, even when he's scaring them out of their German-fearing-minds.

He is known around the globe for several of his books. Perhaps the best known is "Crossing the Postmodern Divide", but in this area of technology and philosophy that I also find so interesting, he made his name with "Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life" back in 1984 (in recent years, he has gotten a lot of press for "Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology").

Reading one of his books is not a simple undertaking, but insightful, rewarding, and inspiring in many ways. To get a feel for his style, I suggest this article, or - if you have headphones (the quality is not so good) - this audio interview.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Everybody cares about my opinion.

"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
Image and quote from The Big Lebowski (1998).

Okay, so not everybody cares about my opinion. However, when I go into restaurants and am accosted by researchers, or browse the internet and am swamped by survey requests, or when I read any newspaper and am encouraged to "talk back" to the author, or when I'm stuck behind a truck that wants me to "tell us how we're doing", you can forgive me for feeling that humble, thoughtful people are begging for my wise counsel and that very soon, the universe around us will change for the better thanks in no small part to a thorough airing of my views. After all, we're told endlessly, "your opinion matters".

I'm weary of this growing obsession with surveys, polls, and feedback. Not surprisingly, it appears to result primarily in banal uniformity and a shameless pandering to people with little imagination. While "my opinion" may matter to the people who are hired to farm it, it's simultaneously obvious that "I" do not. If I mattered in this process, here are a few things that would be different:

  • The study would follow a recognized standard and methodology. Most surveys and intake methods appear to have been formulated by Marxist dictators after a full day of drinking. ("Which of the following three adjectives best describes your boss?  Brilliant, outstanding, or wonderful.")  Please don't waste my time with poor surveys.
  • I would be given an assurance that my name and personal information (like my address) will never be associated with the data I provide.
  • I would be given the opportunity to comment on related topics into which the study did not inquire. If you really want my opinion, make sure that I can give it to you.
  • I would be given the results of the study, and not merely my personal data and the summary data, but the researcher's statement of interpretation, too.
  • At some point in the future, I would be told how the data I provided changed something. This guideline is to prevent what is increasingly commonplace: the organization that sets out to give every indication that they listen to all viewpoints (but don't) and are responsive to their customers or employees (but aren't). Show me how my input was used, or why it was ignored. Otherwise, don't ask.

(Political opinion polls are political instruments best seen as weapons, and are not to be confused with other types of research. For this reason, I simply refuse to take them.  I vote.)

We all have a right to our personal views. The current trend toward polls, surveys and feedback seems to downplay the fact that some opinions are not based in reality, are held by individuals who are unreflective and uninformed, or perhaps are even misrepresented for some other reason.  What I dislike is knowing that my world is being shaped by just these opinions.  It's a trend that will one day fade. I hope.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Solstice

"Tyrrhenian Sea and Solstice Sky" (2005), by Danilo Pivato
Click on image for larger version.

As a person who appreciates the power of sunshine I celebrate the Summer Solstice for exactly the same reasons I avoid all thought of the Winter Solstice.  Yes, the days get shorter from here on out, but for today, we can be happy.

To The Sun-Dial, by John Quincy Adams

To The Sun-Dial
Thou silent herald of Time's silent flight! 
Say, could'st thou speak, what warning voice were thine? 
Shade, who canst only show how others shine! 
Dark, sullen witness of resplendent light 
In day's broad glare, and when the noontide bright 
Of laughing fortune sheds the ray divine, 
Thy ready favors cheer us--but decline 
The clouds of morning and the gloom of night. 
Yet are thy counsels faithful, just, and wise; 
They bid us seize the moments as they pass-- 
Snatch the retrieveless sunbeam as it flies, 
Nor lose one sand of life's revolving glass-- 
Aspiring still, with energy sublime, 
By virtuous deeds to give eternity to Time. 

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Work and technology

"Noon, or The Siesta, after Millet" (1890), Vincent van Gogh

One of the several books on my bedside table is, "I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition", by Twelve Southerners. It's a wonderful collection of essays contrasting The South's (historically) agrarian culture with The North's industrialism. I came across the passage below and it made me think again of the threat to human nature posed by the technological imperative.

"The contribution that science can make to a labor is to render it easier by the help of a tool or a process, and to assure the laborer of his perfect economic security while he is engaged upon it. Then it can be performed with leisure and enjoyment. But the modern laborer has not exactly received this benefit under the industrial regime. His labor is hard, its tempo fierce, and his employment is insecure. The first principle of a good labor is that it must be effective, but the second principle is that it must be enjoyed. Labor is one of the largest items in the human career; it is a modest demand to ask that it may partake of happiness.

The regular act of applied science is to introduce into labor a labor-saving device or a machine. Whether this is a benefit depends on how far it is advisable to save the labor. The philosophy of applied science is generally quite sure that the saving of labor is a pure gain, and that the more of it the better. This is to assume that labor is an evil, that only the end of labor or the material product is good. On this assumption labor becomes mercenary and servile, and it is no wonder if many forms of modern labor are accepted without resentment though they are evidently brutalizing. The act of labor as one of the happy functions of human life has been in effect abandoned, and is practiced solely for its rewards."

Saturday, June 7, 2008

The view from here.

"Tetons and The Snake River", Grand Teton National Park (1942),
by Ansel Adams

One of the most accessible, interesting and insightful books of contemporary philosophy is "The Art of Travel" by the amazing author Alain De Botton. As the summer travel season moves along, I will be jotting down some of my favorite passages from that text.

"Our misery that afternoon, in which the smell of tears mixed with the scents of sun cream and air conditioning, was a reminder of the rigid, unforgiving logic to which human moods appear to be subject, a logic that we ignore at our peril when we encounter a picture of a beautiful land and imagine that happiness must naturally accompany such magnificence.

Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect. Thus we will not enjoy - we are not able to enjoy - sumptuous tropical gardens and attractive wooden beach huts when a relationship to which we are committed abruptly reveals itself to be suffused with incomprehension and resentment.

How quickly may the advantages of civilization be wiped out by a tantrum. The intractability of the mental knots points to the austere, wry wisdom of those ancient philosophers who walked away from prosperity and sophistication and argued, from within a barrel or a mud hut, that the key ingredients of happiness could not be material or aesthetic but must always be stubbornly psychological."

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Politics and the young man.

"Aristotle with a Bust of Homer" (1653),
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Something about the events of this past Tuesday brought to mind a wise passage in Aristotle's Ethics:

"Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general. Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit."

Or, as Ronald Reagan famously asserted regarding Walter Mondale, "I refuse to make my opponent's youth and inexperience an issue in this campaign." (Hat tip to Dr. Moore for the historical fact checking...)